On DVD: 'The Girlfriend Experience'

'The Girlfriend Experience' (R) ***

Writers: David Levien and Brian Koppelman
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Sasha Grey, Chris Santos, Phillip Eyton

Steven Soderbergh has made a lot of movies in his career and he has built an impressive resume of a few blockbusters ("Ocean's Eleven"), some groundbreaking independent ones ("Sex, Lies and Videotape") and a few low budget experimental ones with non actors and strange subject matter. A few years back he made a strange and wonderful movie called "Bubble" with a budget below 2 million and first time actors. It was the first movie released simultaneously in theatres and On Demand on cable. Soderbergh strikes again with the unusual and experimental film "The Girlfriend Experience" that stars a real life porn star. Sasha Grey plays a high priced escort who has sex with a select group of clients and is always trying to promote herself more. Soderbergh follows her in improvised scenes where we see her with her clients and the film goes back and forth with fractured scenes that are pieces to a puzzle. We never see the actual sexual acts because this movie has more on it's mind. It is a very interesting exploration of an escort's lifestyle that makes it one of the best movies about that subject.

Sasha Grey is a real life porn star who here plays Chelsea and she is very beautiful and plays the role well as best as we can expect from her. I didn't know what I was getting into with this story but I was surprised that I found it fascinating and thought provoking. Chelsea has her many clients and she also tries to have a relationship with Chris who is a personal trainer. She also tries to go away with a married man for the weekend and she thinks maybe I can settle down with this guy which makes Chris jealous. Now the movie is making me think how is it possible that an escort can settle down with one man while having fractured sex relationships with other men. What kind of relationship can she have with Chris? Is she going to then quit being an escort? This movie won't provide pat answers to these questions but when we see Chris's reaction to her going away with the married man we can kind of figure it out. This is a movie that might surprise you. It is short and gets the job done and might bring up a good post movie conversation over coffee which is what most of the very good movies do. "The Girlfriend Experience" is now available on DVD.